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So, as promised … the Pre-dating (also known as Speed Dating) story. As promised, I did indeed drag my roommate to go speed dating with me a couple of weeks ago. It was in an upscale country bar (apparently these exist) and we each got six minutes with our 10 speed daters. To categorize it as a whole seems so unfair, so I decided this blog would be a breakdown of each speed dater 1-10. I tried to order them from most normal to the strangest and somewhat disturbing. Because I wisely checked yes to all of the names, I got to see who all said yes and who all said no. Basically it reminded me of the go-sees from America’s Next Top Model. So I’ll be listing my callback results as well!

1.) Florida Keys Hurricane Guy

I actually liked Florida Keys the most of any of my fellow speed daters. He was about my height, blonde and cute looking. He had just moved to my city from the Florida Keys and in the six minutes we chatted, he told me some really funny stories of what happens in the Florida Keys during hurricane season … but alas, he was actually the first person I talked to and it was hard to break the ice the first time …

Callback? No.

2.) Moving to Chicago Guy

Chicago guy was just weird. He spent a majority of our six minutes explaining his excitement for his pending move to Chicago. He was average height and dark hair. Nice looking, but yeah, I don’t think that looking for a girlfriend right before a move across the country is how I would tackle things … very strange.

Callback? Yes*

*However I’m still perplexed as to how that would work. Perhaps he has a long distance fetish??

3.) Cameroon Part 1

This guy was from Cameroon Africa. That’s totally cool. However, judging me for not having visited Africa? Not cool! Yeah I want to see all 50 states first and then start working on Europe. I’m not saying there’s anything against vacationing in Africa, it’s just not the next vacation on my list … I’m planning to get to everything EVENTUALLY lol He also asked if I was a good cook. I explained I was a great assembler, and yet he did not seem impressed. Very short.

Callback? Yes.

4.) The Guy Who Was a Writer

This guy was from India, but had been in the U.S. for a while. He was pretty old, hitting the 34 age gap I’d guess … but a nice person. The attraction wasn’t there and I have to admit, when he found out that I write he went on a three minute long explanation of his plans to be a writer. I tried to be supportive, but the conversation was pretty lackluster.

Callback? Yes.

5.) The Guy Who Couldn’t Speak English

This guy was fun. As soon as he sat down, I realized he really couldn’t speak English. Like not much at all. So after asking what I did (write textbooks) he continued to think I worked in textiles and was a seamstress. Eventually I let him think this. It was easier. It’s very possible he was a lovely person, or that he was saying some crazy messed up stuff like Christian Bale in American Psycho. I’ll never know because I had no idea what he was saying….

Callback? No.

6.) Cameroon Part 2

If you thought Cameroon Part 1 guy was fun, he had nothing on his friend, Cameroon Part 2. Part 2 was less attractive, but taller and man, did he like to have fun. Immediately, he launched into his stories of how much fun he’d had since being in the U.S. (he was apparently French/African and split his time between the two countries—again I’m not sure of the feasibility of any relationship here) This guy’s favorite place in the world? Las Vegas. And he was eager to share that his love of Vegas stemmed from the fact that when he went there he could just “drink and gamble, drink and gamble, drink and gamble all day long.”

Who doesn’t want to sign on to a long time commitment with this guy??

Callback? Yes.

7.) The Guy Who Loved Grandma Pizza

Pizza guy was strange in that he was trying to be funny but he let some of the creepy stuff through along with his humor. He was nerdy looking and had an untidy appearance, dark hair. And apparently he really loved pizza when grandmas were making it. You may ask, his grandma? No, apparently he has found a place in the city where a grandma makes the pizza and he can watch from his booth. I have lived here for two years and I have no idea where he’s referring to. That being said, I was mildly disturbed by this omission and as a parting gift told him of a great pizza place to try. Sadly no grandmas are involved in the making of those pizzas …

Callback? Yes.

8.) The Guy Who Knew Everyone

This guy was great and had been around. A lot. Like, he apparently had graduated from three different colleges and had four different hometowns if all of his discussions could be believed. He had a great pickup line. “Hey, I swear I know you from somewhere!” He was as good as the fortune tellers who predict you’ve had a great tragedy and when you mention the death of your dog, voilà! They knew it! The only sad part was that he was extremely loud and his revelations of coincidences could be heard throughout the bar. Because unless he was a member of the Cullen vampire family adding to their graduation hat collage, there’s no way he had that many childhoods, high schools, and colleges.

Callback? No.

9.) The Guy Who Didn’t Want to Be There

This guy was great. He was pushing 32 and had a receding hairline, but otherwise looked young. The only problem? He really didn’t want to be there. He continually sat in broken silence answering with a “right,” or a “yep.” That really helped the conversation flow along about as well as a dripping sink. I had better conversation with the guy who couldn’t speak English.

Callback? No.

10.) The Guy Who Hated Women

This guy, he was definitely my favorite. I would say if I had to wager a guess that he had lied about his age because no way was he under the 34 age limit. I would say mid-40s for sure. That being said, he was a sexy older guy. Blonde hair, an arm tattoo to make him seem a little dangerous, and sinfully wealthy. From the Rolex and designer clothes, to the arrogance, it was obvious, this guy had serious money.

As soon as he sat down, he got off on the right foot. “So,” he started cockily, “here’s where you’re going to spend six minutes telling me about yourself and then I’ll tell you what I think about what you’ve said.”

Out of the gate, how does it get better than that? Beautiful.

And maybe because I was so in awe of this opener, he proceeded to spend the next five minutes talking about himself. Now, I’m not going to lie, I was a little attracted to Woman Hater. He had a little bit of the Christian Grey Hot Older Guy with a Lot of Money appeal about him. He owned a custom home building company. And apparently he’d really been traumatized by his female clients.

“So basically,” he continued into minute four, “the couple shows up and the guy doesn’t get a say because the woman has 800,000 Pinterest pins. Because all women spend every second of their day pinning dream things for their dream homes on Pinterest. And then they try to give the guy a shoebox for his stuff and want a closet the size of a small house for themselves.”

Lovely.

When he finally got around to asking me a question about myself, I started off by saying, “Well I don’t have a Pinterest.” Then I tried to ask him if he’d lived anywhere else than here. “Oh,” his arrogance reared its head, “So, I’m sorry, but you think you can ask the questions now?” I laughed (and trust me it was a purposeful laugh) “Yeah, I do,” I responded, but sadly our six minutes were up. I feel like we had such chemistry going.

Callback? A shocking no.

Overall the experience was a little awkward, but mostly just interesting. If I took anything away from this? It’s that my many meetups with online strangers has really helped me be able to talk to a complete stranger with ease. All in all, I’ll take a 50% callback rating and classify the speed dating venture as a success.

We left off on an optimistic note about Airman Andrew … unfortunately he did his disappearing act and flew away into the sunset … without a message back. A week later I did receive a response … but he’d given too much time for me to wait and I’d moved on to bigger and better options … or so I’d thought …

I started talking to two other guys on OkCupid. One is the Banker. The Banker is 6’3”, has three sisters, and loves Cedar point. He’s fairly cute and reminds me slightly of Jim from the office from profile pic appearances. That being said, I saw some warning signs with the Banker (who is actually a software developer for Chase Bank). He does not like scary movies and he goes to sleep at TEN p.m. I am nocturnal by nature and this was concerning to say the least …

The other prospect was one I will refer to as Missouri. He seemed cute from photos with a mop of curly hair, 6’0”, had and a cute smile. He LOVED scary movies … possibly as much as I do and seemed to share in my enthusiasm for travel and life in general. He texted me back promptly and asked me to meet him this week to play pool sometime. Charmed, I agreed.

But like all good things, this illusion came to an end …

The more I found out about Missouri, the less attracted I became. He had moved over a month ago to my state to “chill with his friends.” Then I asked what he did and he replied that he was “thinking about applying to work at the Goodwill when he got around to it.” Then he sent a picture of himself to my phone. It was not a picture of anatomy I didn’t need to see … but it was weird nonetheless. It was simply a headshot of his face and he had captioned it, “Me at some party in Columbus.” I want to say first that I simply don’t understand the need guys have for constantly sending pictures of ANY nature to someone they’ve never met. I get that they want pictures back but wouldn’t it be so much easier to simply meet early on so no one’s wasting their time? These pictures weird me out. The other bad news was that Missouri had apparently gotten a new haircut to go with his new address. And it was not cute. Gone was the lovable curly mop of hair and replacing it was a military short cut with highwater bangs. Please believe me when I say: It was not cute.

The more I talked with him, the more it became clear. Missouri was a bum.

This past weekend I took my cousin out for drinks for my birthday to a sports bar. While there in response to his constant requests, we took a picture together and sent it to his phone. In response he sent back a photo of him with his friends saying simply. “I’m in the back!”

That could be taken to mean in the back of the picture, but I recognized the signs behind them. Hewasin the sports bar. Now, had he been the cute, adventurous, non-creepy person I started talking to, I would have been excited to learn this. Considering the fact that I had pretty much decided to stop talking to him, it felt a little more like the scene from When a Stranger Calls: “We traced the call, it’s coming from inside the house! Get out of the house!”

In panic I started scanning the crowd and I located his vibrant green hoodie towards the back of the bar. And he was five foot tall to be generous.

I’m not a person to judge shorter guys. I’m just not attracted to them, with myself being 5’9.” That being said, I do have a problem with someone saying they are 6’0” and being a foot shorter. With his hoodie, new haircut, and odd posture, he looked just like a hobbit. A hobbit bum.

He texted me again saying it sounded like I was having so much fun he and his friends had decided to come out and join us. Suddenly just like the police officer’s warning in the movie, all I could think was “It’s coming from inside of the house!”

Filing my cousin in (who though thanks to her Patron shots thought that this was hilarious), I grabbed her and made a beeline for the bathroom. When we emerged, there was no sign of him. Now, was this a cowardly thing to do? OF COURSE it was. I’m not a hero … I’m a survivor. And I did not want to face the discordant music that talking to Missouri face to face would have brought.

Afterwards I stopped texting him. I usually pride myself on being able to tell a person and just bring closure to the situation, but I was feeling might passive aggressive this weekend. That being said, this did not stop Missouri from sending me SEVENTEEN messages on Easter Sunday, four messages on Monday and a grand total of three messages on Tuesday and Wednesday. He was literally having a conversation with himself. I never messaged him back. He would ask about my day, then tell me what he planned to do with his, then tell me how those plans turned out … so very, very concerning … like an insane person carrying on a conversation with themselves.

No messages today thank the heavens. Was my silent disappearing act that I so loathe honorable? No, it was not. That being said, I unstuck Missouri, a potentially sticky character from my side. So I’m gonna say that was a close one. Everything about him creeped me out eventually …

The Banker on the other hand has gotten better with time. He is fun to talk to, cheerful, and attentive. He seems normal … which is the unicorn these days … and we have a date set up for this coming Monday … fingers crossed! He seems so decent! J I’m hoping for a happy change with this one …

And of course, I have a couple of selected OkCupid messages to share ….

I’m going to assume this was supposed to intrigue me and make me feel compelled to message him. Nice try dude, but nope I’m good.

Second place goes to the generic Sugar Daddy (that, let’s face it, rears his head from time to time): “Hey there. Great profile and pics. You are incredibly gorgeous! Interested in a sugar daddy? I would love to show you an amazing time. I promise you it will be well worth it.”

Yeah … considering that the phrase “sugar daddy” is how you identify yourself …. Probably not …

And first place this week goes to not a message, although it was a certainly heartfelt and creative “Heyyy bby” (yeah … I think the missing “a” is intentional, see further patterns), it is the Eminem Wannabe’s profile that deserves the win.

“My self-summary: [His snapchat, sound cloud, and home phone number]

What I’m doing with my life: Makin music

I’m really good at: Makin people feel goooo

The First things people usually notice about me: My tats

You should message me if: You wanna chill”

I also feel the need to share his income bracket stated as “50,000 to 60,000.”

As chill and as goooo as he might be able to make people feel making music … I’m just not sure he’s raking it in without at least a few unscrupulous side jobs at the docks …. So unfortunately I had to pass on that self-promoter.

Tonight’s the night! Speed dating tonight at 6:20 so less than five hours away! Hopefully I’ll be able to pull something together to share in this bucket list experience … and indeed survive it well J